A Visit from the Goon Squad

I quite enjoyed this unusual story A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Difficult to describe what it is about. The story spans about 40 years when Bennie Salazar starts out in a band in the 1980s, then as life goes on he ends up as a music producer. There is a cast of many characters along the way who are somehow interconnected. Each chapter, the reader is not sure what this "sub-story" will be about, to whom it is connected and what time period it is. You need to concentrate to remember a connection with a character which may be some time back, how old is the character now, what is he or she doing. The story is not chronological, so you can be jumping back and forth, even into the future (which is most interesting). Weird, but worth sticking with. 4/5

Where Are You Now?

I enjoyed Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark. Mac MacKenzie disappeared 10 years ago but phones his mother every Mother's Day to tell her he's okay. His sister Carolyn decides to find out what happened to him and where he is now. Mac is then linked to the disappearance of a young woman and police are desperate to find her as they believe she is the latest in a series of women who have disappeared, probably murdered. The suspense builds as the reader tries to work out who the murderer is - he speaks to us in the first person but does not identify himself. A good yarn. 4/5

Jamrach's Menagerie

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch was a fairly good read, though some of the content was a bit confronting. Set in mid to late 19th century, a young boy, Jaffy, living in the slums meets an escaped tiger in a London street (based on a true incident). He survives the experience and goes to work for the tiger's owner Jamrach in his menagerie where many exotic birds and animals are traded. Jaffy befriends another employee, an older boy, Tim and meets his sister Ishbel. Jaffy and Tim decide to join a ship on an expedition to capture a rare beast for a "collector". Their adventures and mishaps then form most of the story. 31/2/5

One Summer

I did not like One Summer by David Baldacci which is different from his usual thriller/crime genre. It tells a story of a dying man whose wife is suddenly killed in an accident leaving him and his three children. He has a "miraculous" recovery and takes his children to a seaside town where his beloved wife grew up so they can all make a new life together. As our book club ladies would say this is "peaches & cream" to excess with some predictable and some improbable scenarios. Most of it is so sickly "sweet". The author should stick to what he does best. 2/5

Hand Me Down World

This haunting tale Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones tells the story of a young African woman made pregnant by a visiting German, who then steals her new born baby boy and takes him home to Germany as his and his wife's baby. The baby's mother then undertakes a hazardous journey to Europe, experiencing unscrupulous people smugglers who leave their "clients" to drown while waiting for another boat to take them safely to shore - a boat that was never going to come. The mother finds her way to Berlin. The story is told in first person "testimonies" by the people she meets along the way - the reason for this is revealed later in the book. A poignant story. 4/5.

Dissolution

This fiction crime book Dissolution by C.J. Sansom was set in the time of King Henry VIII shortly after the death of Henry's wife Jane Seymour. There was a campaign to dissolve the Catholic monastries. Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer who supports the Reform is sent to an abbey to investigate the murder of a man sent there to oversee the surrender of the monastery. Shardlake takes a young companion, Mark. There are complications as others are murdered and Shardlake has to unravel the mysteries and at the same time fulfill his task to close down the monastery. These are very troubled times. It was a good story and interesting to learn more about the history that formed the background. 31/2/5

October Book Club

We had a lovely evening at Robyn's place last night. She'd bought a great selection of books and, look at her delicious supper! I especially enjoyed the date cake. Bev had just returned from visiting her Mum in Zimbabwe and Liz had returned from visiting her granddaughter, who had just turned one, and family. There were a few absences - Jenny was unwell (hope she is better soon), Marilyn was visiting her Mum, Ulla was in Bali celebrating her husband's birthday and Vee was in England visiting her parents. We had some lively discussions about life in general and the books we've read and I'm looking forward to getting in to the books I've picked. I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow for the National Oral History Conference and that will be a "travel adventure" for me.

Russian Winter

I very much enjoyed Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay which is set in Stalinist Russia and the mid-2000s. Former Soviet ballerina Nina Revskaya defected in the early 1950s and now living in Boston decides to auction her extensive jewellery collection for charity. A lecturer of Russian origin, Grigori Solodin, has a mysterious connection with Revskaya. He has a piece of amber jewellery that appears to be from a set that Revskaya is auctioning. The story goes back and forth, within chapters, between the earlier time when Revskaya began her career and worked her way up in the Bolshoi Ballet, her love for her husband Victor and her friends Vera and Gersh. In the modern time she is a sad old woman thinking about her past and fears learning the truth about that past. The book is well-researched and brings the past to life, particularly the terror of that time and the wonderment of discovering that the West is not the evil empire the Soviets had been made to believe. 41/2/5